The conference covered areas of haptic device evaluation, psychophysical studies of haptic perception, new devices, rendering, identification and control techniques, as well as a number of papers devoted to applications, many of which are in the medical domain.
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This paper describes the evaluation of two multimodal interfaces designed to provide visually impaired people with access to various types of graphs. The interfaces consist of audio and haptics which is rendered on commercially available force feedback devices. This study compares the usability of two force feedback devices: the SensAble PHANToM and the Logitech WingMan force feedback mouse in rep...
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The performance levels of human subjects in size identification and discrimination experiments in both real and virtual environments are presented. The virtual environments are displayed with a three degree-of-freedom haptic interface, developed at Vanderbilt University. The results indicate that performance of the size identification and discrimination tasks in the virtual environment is comparab...
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This paper presents a study on the application of virtual fixtures as a control aid for performing telemanipulation or in the training environment. The implementation features both manual and supervisory control modes. It also studies approaches for using virtual fixtures in generating visual and force clues and/or for restricting the motion of the slave using the definition of virtual fixtures. I...
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This study explores the effects of haptic feedback on performance and learning by human subjects executing a dynamic task. We present the results of experiments involving the control of a ball and beam. Human subjects perform position targeting of the ball through hand operation of the beam angle. In our dynamic analysis we discuss how this prototype task may be used to test the efficacy of variou...
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A taxonomy of haptic modes is proposed as a basis for evaluating haptic interfaces. Haptic modes are defined as distinct styles of using haptic perception for purposeful activity. An evaluation method that exercises a single haptic mode tests the hardware and software of the interface on a task that has a clear relationship to actual applications. To demonstrate this approach to evaluation, the mo...
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In this paper we investigate a use of haptics for skills training which we call haptic guidance. In the haptic guidance paradigm, the subject is physically guided through the ideal motion by the haptic interface, thus giving the subject a kinesthetic understanding of what is required. Subjects learned a complex 3D motion under three training conditions (haptic, visual, haptic and visual) and were ...
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In this paper, we present computationally efficient algorithms for the real time simulation of minimally invasive surgical (MIS) procedures. To develop a surgical simulator for training medical personnel, due to high computational speed required for realistic simulation in real time, there is a fundamental trade-off between realism and processing speed of the simulator. Our research focuses on how...
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This paper presents the Long Elements Method - LEM, a new method for real time, physically based, dynamic simulation of deformable objects. The method is based on a new meshing strategy, using long elements. The number of elements per model is proportional to the square of the length of a side rather than its cube as in a standard meshing based in cubes or tetrahedra. The LEM uses an original comb...
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An approach for haptic volume interaction with high resolution voxel-based anatomic models is presented. The haptic rendering is based on a multi-point collision detection approach which provides realistic tool interaction with the models. Both haptics and graphics are rendered at sub-voxel resolution, which leads to a high level of detail and enables the exploration of the models at any scale. Fo...
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Current simulations of surgical procedures do not provide haptic feedback of cutting forces felt while using surgical scissors. We have designed and tested "haptic scissors," an interface that can display forces to a user grasping Metzenbaum scissor handles. By, filtering and scaling cutting data obtained in previous work, we have created haptic virtual environments that can simulate the cutting o...
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The goal of this remote ultrasound examination project is to provide an accurate solution to practice expert examination in distant geographic areas. Starting from the statement that experts are few and far between and are located in big hospital centers, the aim of this project is to provide secure and precise scan examinations for the largest population. The high value and performance of the med...
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We experimentally assessed the relative contributions of tactile and auditory information to multisensory (i.e., bimodal) judgments of surface roughness using a rigid probe. Participants judged the magnitude of surface roughness and their corresponding confidence in three modality conditions: touch-only, audition-only (i.e., touch-produced sounds only) and touch+audition. The results indicated tha...
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This work explored how the presence of visual information about self-movement affected grasp forces when receiving an object from a partner. Twelve subjects either reached to grasp or grasped without reaching objects that were passed by a partner or rested on a table surface. Visual feedback about self-movement was available for half the trials and was removed for the other half. Results indicated...
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We investigated the relative effectiveness of tangential versus normal displacements of skin for producing tactile sensations. Subjects adjusted the magnitude of slow tangential and oblique displacements of a flat-ended, cylindrical, 1 mm diameter probe glued to the skin in order to match the perceived intensity of a reference displacement that indented the skin normal to the surface. At both the ...
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This paper investigates the problem of perceived instability during haptic texture rendering. We focus on the perceptual analysis of the stability of textured surfaces rendered with a force-reflecting device. The method of limits is used to assess the detection thresholds for perceived instability in terms of the stiffness of the virtual textured surfaces. We varied texture rendering method, explo...
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This research is focused on the development and evaluation of a thermal display that could be incorporated into a haptic device. A review of the research on human temperature perception has assisted in specifying the characteristics required for such a display, and has revealed areas in which there is insufficient knowledge to make these specifications. For example, the number of cooling and/or wa...
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The Rutgers Master II-ND glove is a follow up on the earlier Rutgers Master II haptic interface. The redesigned glove has all the sensing placed on palm support, avoiding routing wires to the fingertips. It uses custom pneumatic actuators arranged in a direct-drive configuration between the palm and the thumb, index middle and ring fingers. The supporting glove used in the RMII design is eliminate...
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A Particle Mechanical Constraint is a soft vinyl tube that envelops Styrofoam beads. It has 6 degrees-of-freedom including compression, elongation, bending and twisting. By exhausting the inside air the PMC solidifies and constraints all degrees-of-freedom in an arbitrary shape. The stiffness of the PMC is proportional to the inside air pressure. Viscosity is also controlled virtually by changing ...
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Efforts are under way to develop a wearable haptic display that can impart directional information on a user's back for situation awareness. To date, two studies have been conducted aboard the NASA KC-135A reduced gravity aircraft to investigate the perception of tactile information in altered-gravity environments. This paper reports our results on perceived loudness of vibrotactile stimulation un...
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This paper describes design of array force display for presentation of hardness distribution in an elastic object. The array force display is composed of an elastic plate and a linear actuator array. It provides a spatially continuous surface on which users can effectively touch virtual objects using any part of their bare hand. The elastic plate is made of rubber and sponge. When the actuator pus...
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This paper describes the dynamic modeling of a five degree of freedom parallel haptic interface. A novel hand/mechanism partition is used to define the mechanism so that the model can be built up from five identical actuator rod models. The dynamic equations for each rod are first derived using the Newton/Euler equations and are then linearized to obtain an impedance transfer function model for ea...
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